Re: Armenian numbering: findings, recommendations and request to CSS WG

Bert Bos wrote:

> and we probably don't need 'lower-armenian' and 'upper-armenian' at all, 
>  just 'armenian'.

Based on the findings exposed in my recent email to CSS WG, I seriously
wonder if we need 'armenian' at all...

> Lowercase for numbers must be very rare. He has only ever seen uppercase. 

They're not rare at all. Please see below.

---- begin quote
I have pinged an armenian expert in France, she's also
an appointed translator between armenian and french in french
courts. Here's her take about traditional armenian numbering:

    - lists are very rarely numbered in traditional armenian
      numbering, even old editions of the Bible use roman numbers
      for lists. It's, according to her, unlikely that anyone
      on the web will use armenian numbering for numbered lists.
      In her whole professionnal life, she has never translated
      an armenian document using traditional numbering for lists.

    - case of numbers in armenian follows the position in the
      sentence. The 1st glyph of a number being at the start
      of a sentence will be uppercase, just like in a normal word.
      All other 'digits' will remain lowercase. Numbers in a middle of a
      sentence are lowercase.

A second source, armenian bookstore in paris, also told me that
newspapers that used traditional armenian numbering for lists have
dropped it and now use almost exclusively arabic or roman numbers.
Newspapers have sporadically used traditional numbering during the
soviet era to mark cultural independance only. (the newspaper I have is
from 1981).

So I guess the result is "go for uppercase since it does not really
matter, armenian numbered lists don't appear to use traditional
numbering at all these days".
----end quote

</Daniel>

Received on Thursday, 12 February 2009 07:51:58 UTC